


Seven Years

by adslady



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hogwarts, Maybe - Freeform, Sane Tom Riddle, Slow Burn, Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort, Tom Riddle lives in the golden trio era, Young Tom Riddle, but characters remain true to form!, but they have the same ideas!, i'm trying this story out, long chapters, no beta reader we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28559511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adslady/pseuds/adslady
Summary: He’d known what she was before he’d even had a name to assign to it – born of muggles, mudblood. Her eyes had given her away during their first night beneath the star strewn ceiling of the Great Hall. Flickering and wide and often times only seconds away from brimming over with tears, Tom knew the signs like the back of his hand even if he didn’t know the particular shade of deep brown that lived in her gaze. She was afraid, and only someone who had not been raised around magic would be so consumed by fear in the face of such wonder.Tom Riddle attends Hogwarts with the Golden Trio:)
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle
Comments: 39
Kudos: 93





	Seven Years

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to this story! I'm so honored that out of all of the fics you could have clicked on, you clicked on mine! Thanks for being here and happy reading Xx

**Year 1**

“And you are?” The voice asks, drawing Tom’s gaze from the mountains of food before him to the pale, pointed face of the fellow first year seated across the table from him. Glistening grey eyes narrow before Tom even has a chance to answer, a glare reminiscent of Mrs. Cole when she was displeased with Tom, and when _wasn’t_ she displeased with Tom?

Not that it mattered – Mrs. Cole was a pathetic excuse for a human, he’d long ago learned to ignore her, and she’d learned long ago that she had no control over Tom, disapproving stares or no.

“Tom.”

“Surname?” The pale face demands, and Tom feels the corner of his mouth flicker down into a frown. He can feel it – the boy’s magic – average to the last drop, and it makes his paltry demands infuriating to Tom who is certain that he could crush the pallid boy with a mere flick of his wrist. He refrains. There are no living snakes here to do his bidding, and as of yet he cannot summon one. _Not yet, but soon._

“Tom Riddle,” he murmurs clearly, reaching for his water goblet to wash down the sour taste upon his tongue.

“Riddle isn’t a wizarding family name,” the boy, who’d already introduced himself as Draco Malfoy with such self-satisfaction his pride could start a fire, pointed out. Tom’s grip tightened for the briefest moment, but after a breath, he contained the trickling red of his vision, the aching at the back of his head to _hurt_ the stupid boy across from him. It had been this way always, the urge to punish those who could stir any form of reaction from him. Emotions were for those _weaker_ humans, those who were short sighted and pathetic and looking to have their lives controlled by their whims, or more likely, by others.

The only person who would be ordering Tom’s life was himself, and one day he would have the ability to make those who attempted to stir _feelings_ – those hallmarks of feebler _others_ – disciplined. He had hardly known his own name in the orphanage before he’d understood that emotion was the most deadly weapon a person wielded, most often against themselves. Those who could not control their own minds would end up mad, or more likely dead. Tom doesn’t dwell on the emaciated faces of his fellow orphans, nor does he choose to remember how only once he’d cried for his mother. The beating had been swift, and from then on it was as if she’d never existed. She _did not_ exist, just as his feelings beyond anger, beyond cold, hard purpose did not exist. He would leave emotion to menial wizards like Draco Malfoy.

“I wouldn’t know,” Tom replies after a moment, aware that several sets of eyes are assessing him, hyenas circling a carcass. This is a lie, but Tom is good at lying to others even if he isn’t good at lying to himself. He’s read every book he could get his hands upon before arriving at Hogwarts, used copies with tattered covers and missing pages, but there were no mentions of any Wizarding Riddles to speak of and only a few tottering Toms from the eighteenth century that were so pathetic he could only pray he wasn’t related to them. “I am an orphan.”

Draco’s face wrinkles, his platinum brow furrowing above the slate grey eyes, and Tom notes that he leans back slightly. Perhaps he was concerned that orphan-hood was contagious, a disease to be transferred, or perhaps he was truly too self-righteous to care. Either way, Tom was unbothered, meeting the Malfoy gaze with the unwavering stillness he’d developed at Wool’s that made the pale boy’s skin flush. Tom had also learned long ago how to weaponize his features, how to stir reactions out of others, how to pull apart people’s words and actions, the way they sounded their vowels or brushed their hair, to read and file away any detail that would give him an advantage. He’d learned that mentioning his orphan’s status stopped the prying, and that more importantly, people’s responses to this fact told _him_ more than it could ever tell the questioner.

“A filthy mudblood, in Slytherin no less,” Draco spits, his lip curling as he leans still further back, the two lumbering fools beside him mimicking his furious expression with degrees less success. “Wait till my father hears about this.”

Tom’s anger is uncontrollable then, like a crackle of electricity that radiates out from him, coloring his vision red, sending his silverware rattling across the table. Over the din of the Great Hall, Draco doesn’t seem to notice. _Fool._ Tom doesn’t need to know what a mudblood is to understand Draco’s tone, and he hates the boy across from him for it – for insulting him, for reminding him how much he still had to learn.

Tom remains silent, reeling in his anger one shuddering breath at a time until he is once more nothing beyond a statue, a set of blue eyes boring into the steadily reddening face before him. At last, Draco seems to realize that he will be incapable of drawing a response from Tom, and he turns to one of the loons beside him and demands one tray or another be passed in his direction, his face still slightly flushed.

Free to return to his meal, Tom reaches for the nearest serving spoon before him, determined to sample as much as he could get his hands on. He did not know what was more starving, his empty stomach which had not been filled since the day before, or his aching mind, the idea that all of this arrayed before him could be _his_ , it was _his_.

Maybe it was both. Tom cannot ever remember being truly satisfied in his life, but here, with an unlimited supply of food, the air _humming_ with the metallic ringing of magic, he thinks he may come closest. The idea makes something inside of him burn.

.

That night he lays in bed, his stomach more full that it has ever been in his eleven years of life, and yet he cannot sleep. There is something tugging at the back of his mind, a door that has swung open hissing and whispering and beckoning him to follow its trail through the dormitory and out into the night. At first he’d attested it to the general magic of the castle, but at last ensconced in the warmth of his own bed, Tom understands that this is different.

Something was calling to him, _only_ to him, and it is this knowledge that causes Tom to smile for the first time since stepping foot into the castle. Even here he was miraculous, even here, he would rise above, lead those too tempted by lesser desires or paltry _feelings_ into his own enlightenment.

That night he dreams of an endless meal where Malfoy and Goyle and all the other useless boys his age dance upon burning coals, serving him platter after platter. They bow before him, _mudblood_ branded onto their foreheads.

.

It takes him exactly eighteen hours after first setting foot within Hogwarts to find the library, ducking away before his first period charms class and tailing an older Ravenclaw student from the Great Hall through the winding corridors. The doors are already thrown open, revealing a dimly lit, near _endless_ array of shelves, only one other person visible in the gloom – the sallow faced librarian who eyed him with all the fierceness of a hawk, as if daring him to misbehave. Tom gives a differential half nod of his head in her direction before continuing down the center aisle of shelves. In his studies of Adults, he’s found that their frail egos like such little displays of difference from children – it made them feel valuable, important even. It was no harm to Tom’s pride to bow or simper or attempt to please, not when _he_ was the one in control, when _he_ was the puppet master coaxing forth all of the reactions and information that he needed with a simple smile or silly little nod.

He beelines for the back of the cavern, determined to scour every inch of the space before he commits himself to one seat, claiming a table as his own. Everywhere he looks are books – peeling leather covers and molding scrolls and even newspapers that were crumpling and un-crumpling themselves upon their respective shelves. Lanterns flicker dully, a feeble light to read by, but solemn and severe and whispering to Tom _welcome, young master, we have been waiting._ His grin is savage.

At last he finds a table to his liking in the back right corner, pulling forth a hard wooden chair and setting down the stack of texts he’s accumulated on his walk. He was tall for eleven, but the pile was nearly half his size, certainly too large to consume before he would have to set off for Defense Against the Dark Arts, but he would try.

It is mere minutes later that Tom is disturbed from his reading by a light tread one shelf over. Eleven years of living in an orphanage has made him sensitive to quiet movements – those who wished, like him, to go undetected moved with such uncanny silence and were therefore worthy of his attention. Those who had no cares for the opinions of others marched blithely on ahead, typically to their own dooms. Glancing up, Tom’s gaze narrows in upon a bushy, brown haired girl that was moving slowly towards him, her movements stilted not because she was attempting to sneak up upon him, but because she was completely and utterly engrossed in the open book in her hands. Tom observes it all in an instant, the meandering steps, the furrowed brow, the multitude of books tucked beneath her arms and sticking out from her bag, the deep brown eyes that move at a near confounding pace from one line to another. She reads like someone determined to commit every line to memory, her bottom lip sucked between two somewhat overlarge front teeth, her honey colored hands flipping the pages with obvious impatience, furious that even a second could be wasted to turn the page.

Tom would have assumed she was a first year based on her size even if he hadn’t already known that she was one. This brunette _girl_ had been standing beside him as they filtered into the Great Hall the night previous, muttering spells and assorted facts beneath her breath the entire walk, tidbits that Tom himself recognized from their own first-year readings that only managed to infuriate him. 

He’d known what she was before he’d even had a name to assign to it – born of muggles, _mudblood_. Her eyes had given her away during their first night beneath the star strewn ceiling of the Great Hall. Flickering and wide and often times only seconds away from brimming over with tears, Tom knew the signs like the back of his hand even if he didn’t know the particular shade of deep brown that lived in her gaze. She was afraid, and only someone who had not been raised around magic would be so consumed by fear in the face of such wonder.

Well, _Tom_ hadn’t been afraid, but he was miraculous. As always he was the exception.

Tom had perfected stirring those exact emotions that had lived in her wavering face that evening within his peers at the orphanage, studying over the years the ways they would wince as he approached, marveling over how inflections in his voice would reduce them to stuttering or shaking and sometimes even fleeing in fear. Humans were so _interesting_ in the manner that they bore their emotions, in the way that they seemed to wallow in their own weakness without any awareness to it. He would have pitied them if he hadn’t detested them.

He’d thought he was doing them a favor in the beginning, back when he was hardly old enough to know up from down. By pointing out their weaknesses, couldn’t they could overcome them? Couldn’t the other children _learn_ not to cry, to stop the snot that bubbled from their nose, to control the wrinkles in their face when they were displeased or annoyed, and Christ _stop_ the insipid smiles that dulled their eyes, that made him want to tear his hair out and tug their teeth from their skulls? But quickly Tom had learned that unlike him, the other orphans would never master their emotions, and so he’d resolved instead to punish them with their inferiority, to peel apart the layers of their skin until their sentiments were as unstable and incomprehensible to themselves as the rest of their inferior minds were to him.

Tom remembers her as she walks towards him – the mudblood _Hermione Granger_ – on their first night within the walls of Hogwarts, and he feels a rumbling within his chest as he swallows a growl. Her fear had been chiseled into every line of her skin, and it had irked him that anyone could be so and that _he_ was not the cause of it. That she was proving what the other magical students surely thought of students like him, like her, like any student not raised with a centuries old Gringotts vault. He’d wanted to hit her, to distance himself from the portrayal of weakness that she’d been, but then she’d danced up the stairs and jammed the Sorting Hat onto her head with such recognizable _need_ that he’d seen red. That she could be afraid and that he could still know her, that he could see within her unremarkable frame the same burning desire to _know._

She passes by him without so much as a glance, and Tom sees red for the briefest moment, unaccustomed to being so ignored, simultaneously curious against his better interests that anyone beyond himself could be so enthralled by a book. He turns over his shoulder, watching as she disappears behind a shelf, the mess of brown curls evaporating in one languid blink, leaving Tom alone with his pile of books.

Something in his chest is burning, and with a near feral sense of pride he pulls his book forward towards him again, his eyes scanning across each line as if he could eat them, brand them into his skin, taking from them what little wisdom they imbued and giving nothing in return. She was _nothing,_ he was _special_. The magic of the castle had called to him, not to the silly brown-haired girl who’d been terrified and desperate and yet equally as hungry for magical knowledge as him, leading her to the library like him after an early breakfast, seizing the day… _no, she’s nothing like you_ he reminds himself, refocusing on the page, committing to memory the names of the twenty-eight noble pureblooded families. _Shafiq, Malfoy, Nott, Gaunt, Weasley…_

Somehow he was a part of this puzzle. Tom knew with a conviction that he’d carried his entire life, a torch that burned all the brighter within him ever since the day of Dumbledore’s fateful visit, that he was destined for this place, for what it would give him. Boring, average, _Hermione Granger_ held no place her, not like him, even if she could read on his level, even if he’d seen and known the look of all-encompassing desire etched into the lines of her face as the hat deliberated for minute after painful minute over her future. _Where do I belong_ it had said, and Tom had recognized the question in her because his own heart asked the same, beating a rhythm he had no answer too. No answer too _yet._

.

She is _infuriating_.

Tom sits in the front row, his used textbook – which he has charmed to look new after Malfoy taunted him, telling anyone within earshot that only _mudbloods_ couldn’t afford proper school materials – open upon the desk before him. _Hermione Granger_ sits in the front row too, exactly five seats to his right, her hand waving in the air so frantically it could be mistaken for an escaped pixie or perhaps a bird with a broken wing, spasming with pain. Tom grits his teeth in order to maintain the pleasantly stoic expression he’s come to master over the past few weeks in her ridiculous presence. He hates her because he _knows_ her, because he can read in the way she sits on the edge of her chair, stuffing fistfuls of brown hair behind her ear that she needs the validation of being correct, of _proving_ her worth amongst the assembled magical students.

_Out of my way, filthy mudblood_ Draco Malfoy’s voice echoes in Tom’s head, and he narrows his eyes at the girl still thrusting her hand into the air, infuriated that he was being lumped incorrectly into relation with _her_. Infuriated because he could see the ties that bound them, and yet he knew with some sixth sense that she was the same and yet not, that _he_ with all his intelligence and calm reason could not be so menial as her. Infuriated because despite his best wishes, he couldn’t deny that she was smart, and why would someone so intelligent also be so ruled by their emotions? Why couldn’t she be _more_?

Intelligent, desperate, hungry, raised by muggles. Too many ties, a veritable tapestry locking them into orbit together, and he hates her for it, hates that he cannot reject her because he does not have enough evidence. Because even though he has spent every morning and night tearing apart the library in search of answers, he can find no word of his father, no tie that _proves_ he is not like pathetic, emotional _Hermione Granger._

Behind her, a pale, red-haired boy is shaking his head at the back of Hermione’s quivering figure, the boy beside him with glasses that were one size too large staring vacantly off into space. Tom notes them, just as he notes that Draco is doodling on his textbook, that Crabbe is sleeping in the back of the classroom, that Tracey Davis is the only other Slytherin their year that seems capable of following along with Quirrel’s stuttering rambling.

“Very good, Miss G-g-g-granger,” their teacher manages to say when at last it becomes clear that no one else intends to answer his question and he calls upon her for the third time in a row. Tom clutches the edge of the table, his nails digging into the soft wood as he breathes through his anger. He’d decided early on he would let her have her successes, he’d beat her in the classroom anyways, and wouldn’t it be _so_ much more satisfying when she didn’t see it coming? _Yes, she’ll think she has the brightest mind in our year, and won’t she be crushed to discover that I was here all along_ Tom thinks to himself, and it is these thoughts that manage to halt the crimson creeping into the corners of his vision, to steady his breathing.

Lifting his quill, Tom dutifully jots down a few notes, more for the showing of focus than the actual information. He knows all of this, he’s known it since he purchased his books over the Summer, but there was something in the façade that delighted him, in tricking his teachers and peers, luring them like rabbits into a trap. Tom smirks at nothing.

.

“I can’t believe they let _Potter_ onto the Quidditch team,” Draco Malfoy is spitting when Tom sits down for lunch. “Precious _Potter_ – Dumbledore will let the Gryffindor’s get away with anything, and my father even offered to make a generous donation to the school if I would be allowed to play… _ridiculous_.”

Tom cannot stop the snort that slides out of his nose as he taps his water goblet with his wand, leaving the weapon upon the tabletop where he will have easy access. The past three nights he has awoken to a variety of curses from his fellow Slytherin first years, cries of _mudblood_ and _orphan_ ringing against the stone walls. He doesn’t retaliate – he will let them have their fun now, cede to them the image of control, and when he took his vengeance, it would be swift and harsh and irreversible.

“Think something’s funny, do you?” Malfoy hisses, his slate grey eyes latching onto Tom’s own midnight. Tom’s head falls to the side slightly, observing as the usual flush rises to Draco’s cheeks. It’s not even fun anymore, getting a rise out of his fellow Slytherin without so much as a word because it’s so _easy_. His hand itches for his wand, to voice those spells he’s uncovered in the dusty corners in the library, but this was neither the time nor the place, and Draco certainly wasn’t worthy of Tom’s abilities.

“Of course not, Malfoy,” Tom says coolly, bored by the twitch in his classmates’ eye, the frowns that mar the faces of his little pack of cronies. _Boring, boring, boring._

“I bet you don’t even know what quidditch is,” Malfoy accuses.

“Obviously I know what it is, and obviously I know that there is a ban on first years participating,” Tom snaps back, his words short and succinct. “What’s ridiculous is the tantrum you’re throwing over a childish game.”

Tom had heard mention of quidditch during his second dinner at the castle, and he’d spent the following day reading up on all of the rules, the intricacies, the school tournaments, the professional leagues in Britain and across the globe. It was knowledge worth having in order to be a successful member of Wizarding society, but it wasn’t _important_ , it didn’t make him _stronger._

“Spoken like a true mudblood,” Malfoy spat. Tom remained motionless, idly wondering in the back of his mind if Malfoy understood that repetition of the insult lessened its impact. He tears his eyes away from the blonde boy, unable to even concentrate upon the willfully ignorant child, his gaze searching and at last settling upon the misshapen head of Hermione Granger, her mild mane of lion’s hair making her easy to spot at any distance.

She sits on the edge of a group of girls, a book propped open before her on the table, and yet Tom can see the way her eyes dart to the faces around her at sporadic intervals, almost begging them to notice her. Tom smirks at her desperation until he realizes that he too is seated on the edge of the first year group at the Slytherin table, talking to no one.

With one final gulp of water and a hasty bite of his ham sandwich, Tom gets to his feet and heads for the door, ignoring the glares from his fellow first years, determined to search the library for what felt like the hundredth time for some clue about his father.

.

He presses his palms to the trophy case, standing upon his tippy toes to catch a glimpse of the dust covered plagues at the back. Every once in a while his eyes scan a familiar name – MacMillan, Crabbe, even Potter – but after scanning the chest for a third time, he must accept that there are no Riddle’s, and he moves onto the next case.

It is well past midnight, the light from the tip of his wand the only source of illumination as he moved from trophy case to trophy case, attempting to glean any knowledge, any proof that his father had attended Hogwarts. Not for the first time he considers that his father may have attended Durmstrang, perhaps Beauxbatons Academy of Magic – he’d come across these names in _Hogwarts a History_ under the chapter regarding the Triwizard Tournament, but he’d save this options until he’d exhausted everything within the castle. _He had to go to Hogwarts_ the voice at the back of his mind whispers, and again he feels the door at the back of his mind swing open, calling him further, deeper into the night.

He’d discovered the trophy room by mistake, overhearing Malfoy one night in the common room as he and his band of goonies guffawed over his prank, sending the dim witted Gryffindor Potter and his faithful sidekick Weasley to the Trophy Room at midnight, only to set Filch upon them. Although he was loathe to admit that ridiculous Draco Malfoy could inspire him, Tom had set out the very next night to check for signs of his father’s presence, a chance to utilize the disillusionment charm he’d discovered in the Restricted Section of the library. But, like everything else Malfoy had ever touched, the trophy room was proving useless.

Tom couldn’t understand Malfoy’s fixation upon Harry Potter. Of course Tom _knew_ about Potter, he’d read about Voldemort’s attack on his parents, that he was supposedly _interesting_ , and yet he also knew that Harry Potter was capable of little more than shooting red sparks out of the end of his wand. It was a sign of Malfoy’s own weakness that he was so riled by someone so _boring_. What was really more of a shame was that such a powerful wizard the likes of which had rarely been seen before, a man of such prodigious skill as Lord Voldemort, could be brought down by a mere babe. _Was everyone more insufficient than himself?_ He’d been at the school for little over a week, and yet Tom was convinced that he would teach himself more from the pages of the Library and through his ceaseless curiosity than he would absorb in the classroom. So seemed to be the burden of great men, and there was no doubt in Tom’s mind that he was a great man, even at eleven.

Everyone in this school was boring besides him. Just as uninteresting as those non-magical kids from his orphanage, perhaps more so because there was so _much_ to learn and to claim here, and they were content to sit by and be fed spoonful’s when they could bathe directly in the ocean. And the only student who was capable of keeping up with him – _Hermione Granger_ – was a mudblood, and she was _emotional_. Tom’s lip curls in disgust, extinguishing the light of his wand.

His walk back to the Slytherin common room is silent, his eyes tearing apart each stone beneath his feet, peering up into paintings as if their oils would give away their secrets.

.

He is making his way towards the Defense classroom when he is knocked askew, teetering dangerously on his side before he rights his balance once more. Tom adjusts his bag upon his shoulder, his hands clenching into fists as his gaze pinpoints the wild mane of Hermione Granger as she bobs and weaves through the corridor, the sound her gasping sobs ringing in his ears long after she has disappeared from view.

.

Tom has caused enough people to faint over the years that he knows Quirrell’s is fake before his turban hits the stone floor, before the first scream has begun to echo around the Great Hall. No one’s arms flail in such a manner, their bodies tending to crumble instead of crashing like a straight-trunked oak tree to the forest floor. It is fake to anyone who knows the signs, who has committed themselves to the study of human emotion as he has, but Tom cares less about this detail and more about _why_.

The benefit of having no close companions is that no one notices when he vanishes from sight, casting a disillusionment charm over himself as students jockey to exit through the oak doors and return to their common rooms. Tom waits in the corner, observing as always with his razor-like precision the frantic faces of his fellow students, the thunder in Dumbledore’s gaze, the sallow stare of Severus Snape as he fixates upon the still limp form of their Defense Professor.

His mind has felt like restless boulders in the middle of stream for the past month, constantly grinding upon one another yet never nearing their end goal. He’d found nothing of his father, no Riddles in Hogwarts lore or school records, in the news or in journals or even in ancient texts about long deceased family lines. And now here, to save himself from his own restless, wandering intellect, was a Halloween troll and Professor Quirrell pretending to faint. Of course he stayed, of course he would pry deeper.

The teachers set off from the Great Hall, some to check on students, others to the dungeons to attempt to head of the lumbering creature. Quirrell, who is admittedly giving a passable performance for someone awaking from a faint, waves them on ahead, insuring them through blithe stutters that he would not overwork himself in such a state until at last he believes himself alone.

Something comes alive in Tom as he watches Quirrel’s face transform, from soft to sharp, defined, his gaze cutting across the room as if he would like to slice through the very walls themselves. _This_ is the complexion of a man with a larger purpose, some plan beyond the menial day to day, and Tom follows him like a moth to light, the first sight that anyone beyond himself might have greater understanding.

Quirrell is one with the shadows, moving down empty corridors and through doors that were hidden to Tom before. The young man resolves to explore the castle more thoroughly, to divert some of the time he was committing to his father to uncovering the secrets of this place until every crevasse was his own, but for now he follows silently after, his footfalls magically silenced as he walks.

At last they appear at the entrance to the third floor corridor – the very door they had been instructed not to enter. Tom’s throat tightens, his grip upon his wand firm as he holds the weapon just before him. For the first time Quirrell pauses, and now within breathing distance, Tom catches a whiff of the rancid smell that seems to emanate from the turban. The Defense teacher glances behind him, his eyes passing through Tom, before he turns once more to the door.

But before Quirrell can act, from behind the wooden door there is unmistakably the roar of a creature, and from the vibrations that rattle the stone beneath their feet, a large one. Something akin to joy burns through Tom’s system, heightening his senses, deluging his nerves with energy because _finally_ there was something worth his energy in this stone castle.

And then, before anything happens, the door is flung open and none other than Snape exits from the darkness, slamming the door behind him and locking it before Tom has a chance to see what is inside. He gnashes his teeth, glaring at the potions professor who is leaning against the door heavily, his wand outstretched before him, pointed directly at Quirrell’s heart.

“Good evening, Professor Quirrell,” Snape sneers, and Tom notices the metallic ring of magic in the air. _He’s putting up wards on the door_ Tom realizes, and with a sense of dismay he takes a few steps back. With both of them present, he would be unable to get into the door at present, and even he felt that it was unlikely he could get through Snape’s wards.

“S-s-severus,” the Defense teacher whimpers, and Tom fights the roiling in his stomach as he watching cool intellect fade into indifference. “I-I-I seem to b-be confu-fused.”

“So it would seem, Professor,” Snape murmurs, and his voice is like ice sliding down Tom’s back, his black gaze like coals. Tom has never seen the man like this, never felt his magic as he feels it now. Perhaps he had underestimated the potion’s master. “I’ll guide you to the hospital wing.”

The two men depart, Tom pressing himself against the wall so they have room to pass, watching Snape limp away, splotches of crimson blood marring the floors until they are both gone from sight.

.

It is a few days later that the rumors begin to surface. Tom cannot recall where he first heard it, he only remembers the way he’d swayed upon his feet when he’d heard that pathetic Harry Potter and lumbering Ronald Weasley had defeated a cave troll, that _Hermione Granger_ had needed rescuing from the two biggest screw ups in their year.

Tom should have been happy about this, he should have relished in her inferiority, that she needed to be saved like some damsel in distress from one of Mrs. Cole’s fairytales. Finally he had proof that her emotions made her weaker, made her vulnerable, and yet she’d sat down between the two blithering idiots for lunch that day and smiled as if the truth of the world had been made real to her, and for the first time since he clapped eyes upon her, Tom doesn’t _know_ her. What had she learned that he hadn’t?

He hates her all the more.

.

Tom catches her in the library often, hunched over books, rolls upon rolls of parchment arrayed before her. It bothers him only because _she_ bothers him, even though he can admit that she is quiet, respectful even of his most hallowed space. That she has a way of filling up twelve inches of parchment that impress even his most stringent, erudite tendencies.

It becomes a problem when Potter and Weasley begin joining her, wheedling her inferior mind into checking Charms homework, praising her until she caves and writes the final few inches of Potions essays. He sits one aisle over at his long ago claimed table in a hardback chair and grinds his teeth together, fighting against ever instinct to round the corner and hex the two boys, to inform Granger that _he_ had gotten the highest grade of all the first years on their first Transfiguration essay. That _his_ hiccupping solution had been textbook while Snape had deemed hers merely passable. It has been months of holding his tongue, and as Christmas break draws nearer, Tom wonders how much longer he can hold out, stop himself from crushing her delicate ego with his superiority in _every class_.

He learns to hate Potter and Weasley by proxy, for lifting up this girl, for letting a mudblood like _Hermione Granger_ believe that she held a place in this world.

“You’re brilliant, Hermione,” the breathless voice of Ron Weasley calls out one afternoon. Tom closes his eyes, breathing in deeply through his nose for a moment. She is merely intelligent, _he_ is the one who was brilliant.

And yet even with this conviction, she never misses a question during class. She pours over books in the library daily – the only other first year to win over Madam Pince through the sheer force of her presence in the Library. Hermione Granger was raised by muggles, but even Tom cannot deny when he watches her out of the corner of his eyes during lessons that she has a certain knack for spellcasting, that she understands at least the basic principles of potioneering and wand movements and Transfiguration theory. And at all times he can see it in her face, the underlying hunger, the desperation that lives in her deep, brown eyes to prove herself, to be _better_.

.

Tom stays at Hogwarts for Christmas, of course he does. He will never willingly subjugate himself to the muggle world again, and for two weeks, he will be rid of his fellow Slytherin first years as they return to the mansions for Yule celebrations. Tom will not miss them, but then again, he has never missed anyone before.

Free to roam the corridors, Tom commits himself to perusing the halls. There are secret passages behind picture frames, rooms that only appear every other week, and trick stairs that must be skipped. He devours every inch of the castle, running his fingers along window panes and casting revealing charms upon suits of armor. He is sent to the hospital wing one afternoon when an ottoman springs to life, latching onto his calf with splintered wooden teeth before he can hex it into oblivion. He brews his own blood replenishing potion, loathe of the idea of being under the care of another human being without his own rational.

Potter and Weasley remain in the castle, but Tom hardly sees them without Granger to drag them to the library. He finds that they are remarkably easy to ignore without the bushy-haired girl framed between the two of them. He cannot understand what it is about her that sets him off, only that something in his chest burns every time he sees her, an itching in his palms and in his mind that blots out everything else for a moment. It was infuriating, _she_ was infuriating.

It is the night of the New Year, Tom’s own birthday as it were, that he discovers it.

He had just received a letter from Dumbledore – a customary _Happy Birthday_ card from Hogwarts that he assumed must be sent to all orphans. It is the first piece of mail he has received since he has been at school, and what a waste of parchment it was. He did not need pity from Dumbledore, he did not even _like_ Dumbledore. He’d never forgive the old man for taking away his box of treasures. Those had been _his_ conquests, proof to the other students of Wools’ that Tom was their superior, and yet the white bearded man had deemed himself worthy of commanding Tom. Again there is a familiar ache within his chest as he longs for retribution, for justice, for his proper place at the head of the world.

Aimlessly Tom kicks open a door to a ill-used classroom somewhere on the fifth floor. He’d gone to the third floor corridor again, but Snape’s wards still remained and he had yet to find a way around them that would not leave his own magical signature upon the door. The room is dust filled, light filtering through the floating particles across a few stray desks that Tom moves through rather aimlessly. He is about to leave when he spots it leaning against the wall, nondescript in everything except for its size.

Ever desperate to claim every inch of this place, Tom approaches, his eyes taking in the gold frame, the nonsensical words carved into the top of the mirror. He stares at them for some time, but frustrated with the dead end reveal, he gives up, instead looking down to meet his own gaze in the glass.

It is not midnight eyes and soft, chocolate curls that greet him in the mirror – it is a man, tall and willowy, his face ghostly pale, eyes crimson and slit-like, his nose nonexistent. Tom cannot remember the last time he felt fear, but there is no denying the tendril of illness that drips down his spine as he observes the man arrayed in swirling black robes, the power that crackles around him even through the glass.

“Who are you?” Tom demands after a moment, when it becomes clear that the other will not speak. The man remains silent, his head falling to the side slightly in a move that is almost… _familiar._ The man lifts his wand, holding it loosely before him, twirling it through his fingers seemingly without care. Tom feels his eyes nearly bulge from his head as he traces the weapon’s movement because that is _his_ wand, the very same one that he clutches in his hand at this very moment.

“Who are you?” Tom demands again, but again there is no answer, only the slow blink of crimson eyes and the twitch of pale lips – a movement that at one time might have been a smile. Tom seats himself before the mirror, watching the man before him, attempting to glean information from his pallid face, but there is nothing – no clues, a mask so uniform that not even a sledgehammer could crack it.

Hunger stirs within him then, an open maw within his gut yearning to be filled. Tom sits before the mirror, his eyes glued upon the glass, and waits to be taught but there is only silence.

.

“Are you finished with this?” A brusque voice asks him, a honey colored finger landing on one of the closed books on the table before Tom. He does not need to look up to know who it is, recognizing the voice before she had even finished her sentence. It is with some mild surprise that Tom realizes it’s the first time she has spoken to him.

“Good afternoon, Granger,” Tom replies easily, allowing a steady smirk to spread across his face as he meets her gaze like freshly roasted coffee. She swallows, clearly unprepared for the possibility of conversation, and her hand retracts to her side where she shoves it into her pocket. Tom’s eyes follow her movements, determined to use this opportunity to learn something about her, something he can weaponize against her when the time is right.

“Oh, hello,” she mutters, as if attempting to get the pleasantries out of the way. Tom feels his smirk broaden. He may not have Slytherin companions due to his unknown blood status, but it had not stopped the other witches of the castle from noticing him – not that he cared. Their interest was a sign of their weakness, but how fascinating that _emotional Hermione Granger_ did not even want his _hello’s_. “Are you finished with this book? I’d like to use it for my History of Magic essay.”

“I will unfortunately be needing it,” he replied, his tone cool, but his eyes alert. To his delight she frowned, fully and deeply, her cheeks marred with a slight blush at his rejection.

“You’ve had it every day this week,” Hermione tells him, and Tom has to stop his brows from shooting up his head. He did not know that she noticed him. “I’ve tried to be patient, but the essay is due in three days and I’d really like to reference it.”

“Unfortunately, Granger,” Tom begins in what he knows is a sympathetic voice even though internally something inside of him is on fire. “I have gotten to the library before you every day this week, and I also plan on using this text in my essay.”

“But you have _every_ book on the Goblin marches of 1812! It’s not fair!”

Tom wonders if she will stamp her foot or hiss at him. The idea delights him.

“It is an _extensive_ assignment, as I’m sure you understand,” Tom murmurs, his head falling to the side as he observes the way she sucks her lip beneath her teeth. Her brow scrunches, and he knows without asking that she is thinking hard.

“Well I need that book.”

“You may not have it,” Tom says with a shade less favor. He did not like repeating himself, it was a fact that every fellow orphan at Wool’s was well aware.

“If I sit here with you, can I use it?”

Tom regards her in silence for a moment, seemingly tossing around the idea in his head. He does not want to share the book with her, he wants to send her on her way frustrated and angry and a reminder of her inferiority, but allowing her a seat would mean that he could observe her more closely, and the idea is… _intriguing_.

“I see no issue with that suggestion,” Tom says at last. Hermione gives a jerking nod and then disappears to collect her belongings. Mere moments later she has returned, setting down with a quiet _thud_ a stack of books nearly ten high, her own essay and quill perched precariously on top. At once she takes the book from Tom’s side of the table, flipping open to the table of contents and perusing the essay collection to find what she needs.

He watches her work more that he would care to admit, as near to Tom’s platonic ideal of a student as he has seen thus far in the castle. She is silent, her quill scratching across the surface of the yellow parchment the only sound she makes beyond the occasional turn of a page or deep sigh of frustration. Against his better wishes, Tom wants to know what her essay entails, what thoughts are rattling around in her brain that inhales textbooks like a siren leading passing ships to their doom. It is one thing to memorize the names of each of the Goblin Kings involved in the marches, it is another thing entirely to understand _why_ they did it, and Tom wants to know where her intelligence stops, if she can put together the pieces of the puzzle the way he can.

Madam Pince kicks them both out of the library at closing hours later. Tom wordlessly spells his books back into his bag, his essay rolling itself, his inkwell cap screwing itself on. Without a word Hermione hands him back the tome, her eyes flitting to his for the briefest moment, and then she disappears from his view, her essay hastily stuffed into her bag, the whiff of green tea the only sign that she had been before him at all.

.

He seeks out the mirror near daily, seating himself before the white-faced man who bears no more emotion than a marble statue, and he pleads with him to teach him his ways, to explain who and what he is, what magic he possesses and how it came to be that he has Tom’s wand. Tom tries every trick in the book he has learned over the years to manipulate the man, charming him, compliments, threats upon his life and even upon the mirror itself. He is met only with silence that presses further and further upon him with each visitation until sometimes Tom can hardly breathe, fleeing the room after mere minutes, laying awake upon his bed for hours afterwards. Always one half of him wants to return, and the other desiring to burn the mirror to the ground.

Tom returns to the mirror every day until one day he opens the door to find it is gone. Some part of his mind laments its loss, but it is short lived. The mirror has been a distraction from his larger purposes – discovering the truth of his father, accruing knowledge of the ages, creating the framework for his own wizarding greatness.

The mirror disappears, and he does not look for it again.

.

“Riddle,” she confronts him one day in the second floor corridor. He is nearly half a foot taller than her, but her coffee gaze does not waver before him, her frame halting before his so that he must stop. Tom remembers the fear in her eyes the first time he’d seen her, terrified in the presence of so much magic, terrified of the sorting that would determine her fate. _How much can change in a few months_ Tom thinks, blinking down at her.

“Yes, Granger?”

“Will you look at my potions essay?” She asks, her voice halting in what Tom realizes is embarrassment. “I asked Professor Snape to look at it, but he said he refused to read over another of my essays, and he told me to come find you because you’d gotten a perfect _Outstanding_ on every single essay he’d assigned this year.”

Tom has no interest in helping anyone with their homework, but what a delicious opportunity to peel back another layer to this girl that he knew _everything_ and yet _nothing_ about. He’d been admittedly less interested in his all-consuming hatred of her during the months the mirror had possessed his mind, but perhaps this opportunity was a result of him turning his back on that frivolous pursuit, even if he hadn’t been the one to send the mirror away. He could not have formulated a better opportunity if he’d tried.

“And what will I get in return for helping you with your schoolwork?”

“Get in return?” Hermione frowned, her face turning redder by the moment. “Can’t you just help me?”

“Well, you are wasting _my_ time, Granger,” he reminds her, feeling a smirk steal across his face. Outside the light of the library he notices that her skin is darker than he’d first imagined, her hair wilder under the sun where each curl gleams and reflects the light.

“Do you need help with your schoolwork?” She offers after a moment, her hands landing upon her hips. He can tell that it pains her to bargain with him from the stiffness in her shoulder, the downturn of her lips.

“Obviously not.” He thinks briefly of Potter and Weasley, trailing after her incessantly, and he wonders again about what they can provide her, what she cannot give to herself.

“Well, then there isn’t much I can give,” she huffs. “If you’re seriously going to insist upon a _trade_ , then I could bring us tea from the Great Hall? It’s still lunch, and I notice you take it with you sometimes to read.”

Tom’s entire body freezes when her words reach him. He had never realized others noticed these details about himself, what other things had she seen? What else did she believe to know about him? Was she aware that they were woven into a tapestry together, a narrative thread that codified their similarities, their hungers for knowledge, or was the tea where her seeing stopped? Tom holds out his hand, palm upward between them like some kind of drawbridge waiting to meet its other half.

“Give me your essay, I’ll go to the library and get started,” he mutters, Hermione’s mouth falling open at his sudden acquiescence. She hands him the scroll without comment, and Tom turns on his heel before he can see if she is following. “I take cream and sugar,” he calls out over his shoulder.

It is nearly ten minutes later that Hermione joins him in the back corner of the library, her eyes narrowed at him, two cups and saucers perched precariously in her grasp. She hands Tom one without comment, and he smirks at the redness of her cheeks, reduced to the roll of serving girl. Tom did not dispute this fact, and he did not thank her.

“What have you found so far?” Hermione asks, noticing that he had filled half a roll of parchment with a series of bulleted notes.

“Structurally, factually, and grammatically it is a sound essay,” Tom tells her. Her words were conscience, every word clearly well-reasoned and carefully placed, no comma absent or word misspelled, and yet it was in the end _bland_ despite being _correct._ Still, it was an impressive essay if for no other reason than the fact that it was extensively researched, empirically bound, and she flushes under his praise. “But thematically your essay is lacking.”

“Explain,” she demands, setting her bag on the floor. Tom reaches for his tea, blowing on it for a moment before taking a lukewarm mouthful just to prolong her agony. He could feel her leg shaking beneath the table, and something akin to pleasure rippled through him.

“I mean, that Snape asked us a _question_ in the prompt,” Tom begins when at last he can stall no more. “A question begs an answer, and every answer must have an opinion.”

“So you’re telling me to slant my writing to one viewpoint or another?” She said, her brow raised in a perfect question. Tom fought not to roll his eyes.

“I’m telling you to stop writing down every fact about dreamless sleep that exists in this library, and to _answer the question_. Make a stance, Granger,” Tom orders her, passing her over both her essay and his notes. “Even if the stance is wrong, Snape won’t punish you if your reasoning is sound.”

She bites her lip, and Tom rocks back in his chair, reaching for his tea saucer and watching as she digests his words. It’s fascinating to watch his affect upon a higher than average mind, even if she isn’t as intelligent as he’d hoped. Why play with Draco Malfoy when he could manipulate Hermione Granger? At last she speaks.

“If I try it and finish it before it’s due, will you read over my updated essay?” She asks, and he can see the starvation in her eyes, the hunger in the twitching of her fingers and feel her desperation in the shaking of her leg. Tom smirks at her.

“Of course, Granger.”

She smiles at him, truly smiles, and something inside him becomes unhinged.

.

He begins to answer questions in class after that. If Snape had outed him as the superior student, than there was no reason to hold back in the classroom. For the blow to be detrimental to her ego, it would have to be expansive, beyond just his _Outstanding_ potions essays. The teachers, relieved not to have to call upon Granger to answer each of their queries, eagerly turn to him. McGonagall even _smiles_ at him – although the expression appeared to cause her pain – the first time he raised his hand in her class. He never meets Granger’s wandering coffee stare, but he can feel it upon him the first few weeks as house point after house point is awarded to him, as the teacher’s attention moves away from her. He is mildly impressed, therefore, when she returns to him with a completed essay despite his blow to her pride in the classroom.

The second essay was markedly better than the first, and something inside of Tom preens to have molded her into a better version of herself, to have opened a world of viewpoints and possibilities up to her.

When he tells her of her improvement, she gives him a second smile, and Tom marvels that she is so generous with her emotions, that she cannot see that he will use them against her.

.

“Why are you reading about dragons?” He asks her when he happens upon her at his usual table, various texts with titles such as _Dragon Taming for the Novice Witch and Wizard_ and _Dragon Breeds and Species of the Eurasian Plains_ laying upon the table before her.

“Hagrid gave them to me,” she mutters under her breath, again never looking up from her book, eyes flitting to the next page. Tom snorts. There was no possibility in his mind that a fool like Hagrid could possibly read, and the likelihood that he’d given Hermione a book were close to zero.

“And where are your lackies?” Tom continues after a moment, a frown marring his face when he realizes she isn’t going to acknowledge him. “Don’t they normally join you in the library on Tuesdays?”

“ _Harry and Ron_ ,” she corrects, at last looking up at him with a frown to match his own, “are out playing quidditch because supposedly the weather is nice. And they are not my lackies – they are my friends.”

“You have more brain cells in your nose then the two of them do in both their brains combined,” Tom informs her, as if somehow she has missed this. How she could have he does not know, it is well known amongst all the first years that Harry Potter – vanquisher of the Dark Lord – and his side piece Ron Weasley were below average students at best.

“Still my friends, Riddle,” she tells him, returning her gaze to her book.

“So why are you reading about dragons instead of joining them?” He asks. Rarely is one of the three of the three Gryffindor Stooges seen apart, most time Hermione electing to read in their presence even if she wasn’t participating in the two boys general tom-foolery.

“Because I chose too, anything else?”

“You’re at my table,” he hisses, annoyed that she dodged his question. It seemed that manipulated those of intelligence was more difficult. He’d failed with Dumbledore, he’d succeeded with his other teachers, and yet _Hermione Granger_ seemed immune to his charms.

“By all means, take a seat,” she says, glancing up at him for a moment. “Although I don’t see your name anywhere on it.”

Tom remains standing for a moment, running through his catalogue of emotions, returning to the files on the young woman before him. He comes up empty handed, but in a last ditch effort, he offers her a half smile, nothing more than a twitch of his lip as he pulls out and seats himself in his customary chair.

“Thank you, Granger,” he offers coolly, like an olive branch between them.

Her eyes have never been wider.

.

“Did you see we’re in the lead for house points?” Zabini points out, every eye of first year Slytherin boys landing upon the container of emeralds across the Great Hall. “We’ve been up for a month.”

“I’ve heard Lillian Drew in fifth year won forty house points by saving her Herbology partner from Devil’s Snare the other day,” Nott explains with no more excitement than Binn’s held for History of Magic.

“Riddle’s been winning us a bunch of points in classes recently,” Tracey Davis says, leaning in to join their conversation, her gaze zeroed in upon Tom. He blinks at her, not deigning to answer. It was true that he’d won nearly seventy house points alone over the past few weeks, but he wouldn’t turn down praise. Frankly, it was his due, even if he could care less about the house cup. It was a menial competition in the end.

Across the table and a few seats down, Draco Malfoy’s face turns towards him, grey eyes boring into the side of Riddle’s face. He’d given up long ago on bullying Riddle when he’d learned that he would get no reaction from him. _See what control of your emotions does_ Tom wants to hiss into the boy’s ear, _see how I have controlled you without lifting a finger, without even opening my mouth?_ He remains silent as always, and the conversation moves on to another perceived affront Potter had given Malfoy.

.

Draco Malfoy wasn’t at breakfast the next day, but he didn’t need to be for Tom to hear what had happened, how Hermione Granger and Harry Potter had set off a dragon – _supposedly_ – from the Astronomy tower, how Draco had turned them in, how all four students out of bed last night had lost fifty points from their respective houses and would be serving detention in the Forbidden Forest that night.

Tom had been out of bed last night riffling through the student longs of Durmstrang, and he’d missed the entire event.

Tom’s eyes seek out the familiar wild hair of the only student who is capable of answering the same questions as him in class before he has even realized what he is doing, and then anger ripples through him that he’d even thought about her at all, that somehow she had wedged her way beneath his skin enough to merit his notice. Fucking _Hermione Granger_ who was smart, but who could be so much more. Who was starved for the notice of the wizarding world she’d been denied as much as he was, even if she was a mudblood, even if she did care about foolish things like _friends_ , and who was determined to overcome her situational shortcomings. Who was _she_ to be worthy of his attention his attention?

“Is everything ok, Riddle?” Tracey Davis asks, and Tom’s gaze returns to the Slytherins, aware that he was causing the silverware to rattle on the table.

“Of course, thank you, Davis,” he murmurs with a smirk that does not reach his eyes. She blinks at him and then flushes before returning to her meal.

In the end he does look at her. Hermione is flanked as always by her two faithful friends. Tom has a strange urge to approach her, to ask if she really did set off a dragon. He remembers the books she’d read in the library that day, how nothing in her face had given him any reason to pause, and yet surely the two separate events proved that the latter was true?

He feels the stirrings of his anger again, that Hermione Granger was proving to be another mystery he could not solve – like that of the castle which beckoned ceaselessly too him, like that of his father where every passing day he was forced to believe that perhaps his father had not been magical at all.

.

He’d always meant to return to the third floor corridor, to test sporadically the wards that Snape had erected to see if they would come down, but after the debacle and distraction of the mirror, Tom had pushed away all other pursuits that distracted him from what truly mattered.

He was in the library thinking about the third floor corridor when he accepted the undeniable truth that his father had at the least, never step foot in Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, or Durmstrang, and that if he’d been a wizard, he’d been of so little import to never warrant even a mention in the newspaper. The idea sickens him, but thus resolved, it forces him to turn his attentions to his mother’s side of the family – the woman who he has convinced himself for years _could not exist_ because no witch would die and leave their child to such a fate.

And yet, it seems that some deity or supernatural force is looking to mock him, returning to one of the first registries of Wizarding Families he’d un-shelved so many months ago at the start of the fall term, only to find the answer written so obviously before him.

_Marvolo Gaunt._

_Tom Marvolo Riddle._

It could not be a coincidence, and yet Tom snaps the book closed, unwilling for once to read further.

Taking the book with him, he is on his way down to the Slytherin Common Room when he hears a commotion from the Entrance Hall. Curiosity peaked, Tom arrives to see students from all of the houses shouting and waving their arms at their friends, pointing at several ministry officials gathered in the doorway.

“… _heard he tried to steal the Philosopher’s Stone…”_

_“…fought another troll I heard…”_

_“…Quirrell will have a trial at the Ministry, there’s no doubt…”_

_“Wait till my father hears about this!”_

Standing upon the stairs and observing the chaos, Tom was able to piece together the narrative. That somehow, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley and Hermione _fucking_ Granger had fought their way through a series of enchanted dungeons and challenged Professor Quirrell for the sorcerer’s stone. The facts themselves remain in flux, but the premise is that, and finally satisfied that he knows as much as those gathered, he makes his way back to the dungeons.

Fury prickles at him then, that his pursuit for his father had blinded him to the movements of the castle around him. Never before had something so vast escaped his notice, and the clues had been there at his fingertips! He slams the door the dormitory closed, and once certain that there is no one inside, he conjures a wall of blue fire so hot that at once every item in the room bursts into flame. He lets the spell rage until his knees shake with exhaustion, and then he cuts off the flow of magic, the room as it was before without a burn in sight.

How could have Hermione Granger, who cared about silly things like friendship, have happened upon something like this? He’d been too distracted, too singled-minded, and he would _never_ make that mistake again.

Seating himself upon the bed he flips open the book of genealogies once more, brushing through the pages with such force one of them tears from the binding. He ignores this, at last settling upon the page he was looking for:

_The House of Gaunt Family Tree_

Tom begins moving down through the names, ingesting those people who had come before him until one catches his eye, not even halfway down the page.

Something burns inside his chest, something new and unrecognizable, a roar that threatens to tear him a part because _at last_ he has the proof that he was searching for – the tangible evidence that he was more than pathetic Draco Malfoy and his twenty-eight or emotional Hermione Granger and her stupid friends or even famous Albus Dumbledore and all his high morals.

Tom reads the two words over and over until they blur before his eyes and he falls back upon the mattress, his chest heaving. He’d always known he was special, the only thing that remained now was to reveal it.

.

They wait at the station to board the train, Tom standing with his trunk by his side, his wand twirling restlessly between his fingers. He did not want to return, he’d even asked Dumbledore to allow him to stay, but the frail old wizard had denied him – even smiled at him while he did it. Tom frowns, casting a levitation charm at his trunk just for the mere ability of it, because in a few short hours his magic will be ripped from him for two months.

He knows that even the pureblooded students will not be able to perform magic even at their manor homes and country estates, but they will have access to the magical world, to _his_ world, and the unfairness of it all has him seeing red once more, golden sparks emitting from the end of his wand. Now that he knew who he was, it only agonized him all the more to leave it behind. He – more than any student present – had the right to remain.

“You’re doing it again, Riddle,” Tracey Davis calls out after a moment, and Tom returns to the world of the living to cut off the sparks. She smiles at him, Tom nods in return.

“If you get permission, you’re welcome to come visit me on holiday,” she continues airily after a moment, passing him a neatly folded piece of parchment with what he assumes is his address. “Just owl me. Have a good Summer, Riddle.”

“Davis,” Tom replies with another nod, and then she is gone, joining the crowd of Slytherin first years. Draco Malfoy catches his gaze – they stare for a moment, and then the look away. It wasn’t worth either of their time any more, and both had moved on to different pastures.

It is as the train is pulling up that Hermione Granger appears before him, somewhat breathless, still waving a final goodbye to someone over his shoulder before at last her deep, coffee gaze settles on his own.

“Wanted to wish you a happy Summer,” she says, panting slightly. He can see more of her teeth than he ever has before as she smiles up at him, fixating upon this detail because he cannot for the life of him understand why she is there before him, speaking to him, how _she_ could have accomplished such monumental things in the dungeons beneath the castle.

“You as well,” he replies stiffly after a moment, not sure if he means it or not.

“Study up this summer, I fully plan on getting better potions scores than you second year,” she informs him, and then she is gone in another flash, off to say farewell to someone or another that Tom doesn’t care about. He watches her go, observing the way the light moves through her curls, and he allows a smirk to spread across his face.

He wasn’t worried about classes, he would always defeat her there, but he did have new information now, one less distraction to stop him from keeping an eye upon her the next year. He knew who he descended from, just as he knew now what the whispering voices calling to him even now, beckoning him up the hill to the castle, were asking him to find. She’d discovered more this year simply because he hadn’t been looking, distracted by unrelated questions, and because he’d underestimated her. Never again, however.

He was Tom Riddle, he was _miraculous_ , always the exception.

He was the descendent of Salazar Slytherin, and there was a Chamber of Secrets he had to find and to claim.

**Author's Note:**

> greetings greetings! So wow, that was a lot of words for a chapter, but also we had a whole year to cover! I'm honestly super nervous about this portrayal of Tom, I know people have strong feelings about him and he's such a strong character in general, but I hope I did him justice. I'd love to know what you thought!
> 
> Alsoooo, if you've ever read anything of mine, then I will say updates for this one may be a bit more sporadic than they were for Limited. Mostly because I'm trying to do a bit more of a character study, and also because if every chapter is 11,000 words like this one, it may take me a minute to type it out. Please have patience with me, and know I've never abandoned a story yet!!
> 
> If you have anything you'd like to see, I'm planning on going through year by year in each chapter, probably gonna mix in some Hermione POV as well!! Let me know your thoughts:)
> 
> Thanks again, everyone stay safe and take care of yourself. Happy 2021!


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